Strength or weakness?

I have begun to realize that things I have considered to be part of my personality (aka inseparable from my core self) and skills are really marks of my trauma, and symptoms of a disordered/recovering mind. These include:

Hypersensitivity (to emotions)

• I used to pride myself on my ability to read emotions. This can be useful, for example, in reading character, and protecting myself. 
• It can also very quickly become draining. Whereas others experience a room full of smiling people, I experience every heartache, angry face, and cold shoulder in the room. 
• It can also be used against me. Abusers can intuitively sense when others are hypersensitive, and use it against us. This is the “perfect crime,” from their perspective. They can emotionally abuse by simply projecting their anger: even walking into the room in an aggressive way can make a hypersensitive person tremble. But how could they ever be called out on it? What have they really done...?
• In order to help me reduce my hypersensitivity, I have taken a hypnotherapy session where I visualized turning the volume on my “emotion reader” (like an amplifier for an electric guitar) from max, down to about 4, which is quite adequate. Also, in tense situations, (I’ve had my share at work lately) I find it helpful to repeat to myself: “I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care!” When I notice someone is in a bad mood, especially if they are trying to punish or control or threaten me through their emotional projections. 

Hypersensitivity (to sounds)

• I had this especially in Africa: I would notice sounds and smells with vivid detail, especially at night. This often kept me from sleeping. 
• This was not a strength, but a trauma response, from not feeling safe

Perfectionism/Overperformance

• I have always been a perfectionist, and naturally find myself competing with others or even myself. I strive to be the best at most things.
• This, naturally, has its advantages and has served me at times. However, it is not healthy, but stems from a poor sense of self, where acceptance was predicated on performance as a child. Some of the disadvantages include:
• Tensions with coworkers, who think I’m trying to outdo them (they are often right)
• An inability to rest, resulting in health conditions
• Ironically, an inability to do some jobs/projects well, or at all. Many jobs are made up of many complex tasks, which must be done reasonably well. My need to do everything perfectly has made it impossible or impractical to get done things done in a reasonable amount of time. 
• Paradoxically, a propensity to make stupid mistakes. As discussed before, a hyper-focus on doing things “perfectly,” tends to make me make stupid mistakes. In driving, for example, I found it necessary to never tell myself I had backed up “perfectly.” If I did, it seemed that I would “jinx” myself for my next several backup jobs. Anytime I would start yo congratulate myself, I found it necessary to stop myself. “That’s enough if that,” I would say. Backups were neither amazingly good or bad: they were just backups. That’s it. In this way, I was able to perform my job quite adequately. 
• In other settings (eg writing essays it papers) I sometimes had to tell myself, “just write done garbage!” ...in order to write anything at all. My tendency was to over study to an extreme, until I had too much material for the paper. Another way I would hope was to procrastinate, so that I had a natural time barrier 

Counsellor/peacekeeper 

• Along with being very sensitive to the emotions of others, I am very sensitive to the emotions, and social structure of a workplace. I have seen this as a strength, a way to protect myself, and a way to “do ministry” by helping out those who are troubled 
• Increasingly, I am seeing that being hyper-sensitive to the emotions of others draws me into drama that I don’t need, or which might not even exist were I not focused on it. I just reread some of my posts about Royce quitting at work. I am mildly ashamed. Only mildly, because I know I need to give myself grace right now. But ashamed because these are not the musings of a well-ordered mind. My boundaries are blurry, I’m taking responsibility for things that aren’t my problems, and it is causing all sorts of stress because I’m trying to fix people and structure I have little or no real power over 

...in all of these ways, my life is so damn complicated, when it doesn’t need to be. 

I used to notice with some envy how other kids (often from healthy, often Mennonite homes) could go through school, do reasonably well, make friends, date, marry, get a job, and succeed with very little drama, and without all of the anxiety, stress, perfectionism, and hyper vigilance that I needed. Oh sure, they had hard things. But day to day life wasn’t hard for them. Not like it was did me. 

Why was life so simple for some people?

Because they didn’t have the abusive childhood that I had, and the perfectionism and hypersensitivity that comes along with that. 

I won’t deny that it has had its advantages. I have pushed itself very hard. I have loved and felt very deeply. I have gone places and done things. In 37 years, I have experienced more than some have in a lifetime. ...but along with that, there has been a hefty price tag. 

I cannot change the past. Why regret it? 

I chose to own it. I can be proud of parts if it, ave learn lessons from other parts.

Moving forwards, I will choose to emphasize those parts of myself that encourage a healthy, “good enough,” approach to perfection, and a healthy “aware enough” perception of the feelings of others. 

I have many things to do, in the second half if my life, and fo not want either perfectionism or hypersensitivity to continue to cripple my potential. 

***

Note: another thing I thought of is my propensity to think several thoughts at the sane time, and start many projects but shut them down or get distracted by another one before I can get anything off the ground. 

This “spinning mind,” is not a strength (although some days I look very productive!) but a weakness, as

• It keeps me from accomplishing one task well, by trying to do several (who end up being five poorly)
• It keeps me from dealing with core issues, by constantly rerouting my internal conversations onto other neural pathways 
• It keeps me from working with passion towards a goal. The things I have accomplished have usually been due to limits outside of myself, such as ... 

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